Last month, the United States
released documentation from 1987 of its assessment of Israel's nuclear
weapons capabilities at the time, required to do so by law after
receiving a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document, formally titled "Critical Technological Assessment in
Israel and NATO Nations," was written by Leading Technologies
Incorporated for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and commissioned by
the Department of Defense. Its contents are based on visits by US
experts, in coordination with the US embassy in Tel Aviv and with the
guidance of the Pentagon, to various facilities and laboratories across
Israel.

While Israel has never publicly declared itself a nuclear weapons state,
its arsenal is widely acknowledged by the international community.
Israel is not a signatory of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

This document, however, summarizes in detail Washington's understanding
of the nature and purpose of that program as it stood in the 1980s.

In early February, the Pentagon
declassified a 386-page report from 1987, exposing for the first time
ever the actual depth of top-secret military cooperation between the
United States and Israel — including, amazingly, information about
Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear program.

In view of the caustic tension
that has increased lately between Washington and Jerusalem, the timing
of the publication’s declassification, after a long legal process, might
raise a few eyebrows. I have some knowledge about the build-up process
of Israel’s nuclear capacity and after reading the report in question I
must express my astonishment: I have never seen an official American
document disclosing such extensive revelation on subjects that until now
were regarded by both administrations as unspeakable secrets.
More

While the Washington press corps obsessed over
Hillary Clinton's emails at the State Department, reporters were missing
a far more important story about government secrets. After five decades
of pretending otherwise, the Pentagon has reluctantly confirmed that
Israel does indeed possess nuclear bombs, as well as awesome weapons
technology similar to America's.

Early last month the Department of Defense released a secret report done
in 1987 by the Pentagon funded Institute for Defense Analysis that
essentially confirms the existence of Israel's nukes. DOD was responding
to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by Grant Smith, an
investigative reporter and author who heads the Institute for Research:
Middle East Policy. Smith said he thinks this is the first time the US
government has ever provided official recognition of the longstanding
reality.More

A federal lawsuit seeks disclosure of
thousands of Central Intelligence Agency files revealing why the CIA is
convinced that Israel stole enough U.S. government-owned weapons-grade
uranium in the 1960’s to manufacture over a dozen atomic weapons.

The
147-page complaint (PDF) filed in DC’s U.S. District Court contains
exhibits about how U.S. weapons-grade uranium was illegally diverted
from the now-defunct Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC)
in Apollo, Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons
development program. The CIA WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2015
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A federal lawsuit seeks disclosure of
thousands of Central Intelligence Agency files revealing why the CIA is
convinced that Israel stole enough U.S. government-owned weapons-grade
uranium in the 1960's to manufacture over a dozen atomic weapons.

The 147-page
complaint (PDF) filed in DC's U.S. District Court contains exhibits
about how U.S. weapons-grade uranium was illegally diverted from the
now-defunct Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in
Apollo, Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons
development program. The CIA for decades has blocked researcher Freedom
of Information Act access to its core files on the NUMEC diversion.

The lawsuit against CIA comes at the
conclusion of IRmep's
courtroom victory this month against the U.S. Department of Defense
to release a report (PDF) on the Israeli H-bomb development program,
laser enrichment of weapons-grade material and 1987 status of its
nuclear weapons production sites.
More Lawsuit (PDF)

In
the depths of the Cold War, a legendary Israeli spy made a visit to a
Pennsylvania plant that processed government-supplied U-235 uranium into
fuel for the U.S. Navy. Around the same time, hundreds of kilograms of
uranium disappeared from the plant.

Traces of uranium were found outside Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in
the 1960's and later revealed to carry the unique signature of uranium
from the Philadephia [Apollo] plant.

The mystery of how the uranium traveled from one place to the other is
what a Washington-based researcher is trying to unravel through a
federal court complaint filed Friday.

The complaint asks for CIA files regarding "the unlawful diversion of
U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials
and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) into the clandestine Israeli nuclear
weapons program."

The
1987 report’s confirmation of Israel’s advanced nuclear weapons program
should have immediately triggered a cutoff in all U.S. aid to Israel
under the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the US Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961. Although 100 copies of the tightly-controlled report were
apparently published, none seem to have made their way into the office
of the President in time to cut off any of the $82 billion in aid
subsequently delivered to Israel – or publicly issue the required
waivers. This is done in the case of other countries with weapons
programs operating outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime such as
Pakistan.

Similarly, the US did not move to curb as required Israel’s
weapons-related work using the Soreq reactor, lab and testing facilities
– provided by US taxpayers in the late 1950’s under Eisenhower’s Atoms
for Peace Program under the provision they not be used for weapons
programs.
More

In the midst of controversy over the Israeli prime minister's plans to
address Congress next month, a researcher has won the release of a
decades-old Defense Department report detailing the U.S. government's
extensive help to Israel in that nation's development of a nuclear bomb.

"I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making
devices between Israel and the US," said Roger Mattson, a former member
of the Atomic Energy Commission technical staff.

The 1987 report, "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO
Nations," compares the key Israeli facilities developing nuclear weapons
to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the principal U.S.
laboratories that developed the bomb for the United States.

The tightly held report notes that the Israelis are "developing the kind
of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes
which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and
macroscopic level."

The release comes after Grant Smith, director of the Washington,
D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy filed filed a
FOIA request last year and followed with a lawsuit in September seeking
to compel release of the report.
More

Congress
has never debated or held open hearings on Israel’s nuclear weapons
program. A 2008 congressional report on nuclear proliferation excludes
Israel and simply does “not take a position on the existence of Israeli
nuclear weapons.” The penalties for lower level government officials
making even passing references to Israel as a nuclear weapons state are
swift and harsh. Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear analyst James
Doyle wrote candidly about Israel’s nuclear weapons for a magazine in
2013. After a congressional staffer read the article, which had passed a
classification review, it was referred to classification officials for a
second review. Doyle’s pay was then cut, his home computer searched, and
he was fired.

Two gag rules are known to exist as a result of Doyle’s unsuccessful
appeals to get his job back. GEN-16 is a “no-comment” policy on
“classified information in the public domain” (which President Obama
apparently invoked). The other is “DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136
on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities,” which is secret but presumably forbids
publicly stating that Israel is a nuclear power.

While it is difficult to
deny that the “ambiguity” muzzle has greatly benefited Israel and its
U.S. lobby, it is an ongoing and costly disaster for American taxpayers.
According to a September Google Consumer Survey, 64 percent of Americans
believe Israel has nuclear weapons, while 6 in 10 think U.S. foreign aid
to Israel is “too much...”
Yet because it is official U.S. policy to pretend the existence of
Israel’s arsenal is unknown, a $3 billion-plus taxpayer giveaway of
top-shelf American military aid, cash and intelligence support is
delivered annually, despite Israel having long possessed the ultimate
military deterrent. And researchers and historians have long been
stymied by the withholding of key U.S. government documents locked
securely away from the public in National Archives and Records
Administration vaults.
More

02/04/2015

Obama, what about Israel’s nuclear arsenal?

It is disappointing, if not disturbing, that
US President Barack Obama avoided airing any views about the
decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict in an hour-long interview
about US foreign policy issues with CNN’s much-respected anchorman
Fareed Zakaria.

One possible
explanation is that Obama had told Zakaria that he did not want to
discuss the issue, or Zakaria thought it wiser not to raise the subject
since US-Israeli relations have hit rock bottom. Whatever the case, the
fact remains that the American president has avoided the issue ever
since he and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, failed to bring the two
parties any closer, which prompted the Palestinians to successfully
approach the United Nations. The obvious reason in the view of many
Palestinians is that Israel has strong support within the American
establishment.

But a Washington-based think-tank, the
Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) recently painted a
different, and more appealing, picture. A “special report” written by
its director, Grant F. Smith, focused on a lawsuit that it has filed
challenging “US ‘ambiguity’ towards Israel’s nuclear arsenal”.
More

01/28/2015

Poll: Netanyahu should be investigated for nuclear
weapons tech smuggling before US visit

A majority of Americans believe Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be investigated by the FBI for
nuclear weapons technology smuggling before being allowed to enter the
United States according to a new poll.
Poll ResultsNews
Radio Interview

Defense officials are
fighting a three-year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act
to release a 1987 report supposedly discussing Israel’s nuclear
technology.

Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy filed
the request in 2012 and raised the issue in court after he said the
request “went nowhere” for several years. He has been a critic of many
U.S. policies related to Israel and of what he believes to be the
inordinate influence of Israel in the American government.

In a seldom-used legal move known as optional review, Pentagon officials
have asked the Israeli government to review the report before they
consider releasing it.

Smith said the Defense Department has denied being able to locate the
report, claimed it contained sensitive Israeli government information
and cited FOIA exemptions, non-disclosure agreements and patents to
intellectual property rights in its efforts to block the release of the
report.

“They’ve put a lot of obstacles out in front of us,” Smith told the
Washington Examiner.
More

WASHINGTON (CN) - The
U.S. Defense Department is so far refusing to produce a report that
discusses nuclear technology issues in Israel, in response to a
researcher's request for information.The
report at issue is called "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO
Countries," written nearly three decades ago. It is not classified.Grant Smith, founder of the Washington-based Institute for
Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., filed a request for the report
under the Freedom of Information Act three years ago. When the
government failed to produce the document, he followed up with a
pro se complaint in
September.
More

PR
Newswire - 12/17/2014
- Washington - Register online for "The Israel Lobby: Is It Good
for the US?" today at
http://IsraelLobbyUS.org

"The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US?"
is an all-day conference which will take place April 10 in the
National Press Club ballroom in Washington, DC. Questions will be
addressed by experts of all ages and backgrounds from academia,
government, independent research organizations and alternative news
media shut out of public discourse. The conference is co-sponsored by
the American Educational Trust's publication Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs(WRMEA) and the Institute for Research:
Middle Eastern Policy, Inc (IRmep).

Hundreds of organizations lobbying for Israel behind the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) continue to push for U.S. economic
warfare and military actions against Iran. Most Americans support
negotiations to resolve questions over Iran's civilian nuclear program
and oppose efforts to torpedo diplomacy. Americans also overwhelmingly
(63.9%) believe Israel is a
Middle East nation with nuclear weapons.

Recent passage of the US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2014 gives
Israel expanded rights to U.S. weapons stockpiles, diplomatic support,
additional foreign aid and future visa-free entry, despite Israel's long
history of espionage against the United States. Yet six in ten
Americans, advised that the U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion
annually (9% of the foreign aid budget and more than any other country),
believe such aid is "too much."

Pro-Israel donors
and
political action committees are working hard to ensure that when
Americans head to the polls to choose a president in 2016, both
candidates will be Zionists. Delegates who oppose special pro-Israel
planks in conventions are
shut down by rigged votes.

Itzhak
(aka Yitzhak) Vardi's intelligence operations for Israel in England put
him on an FBI watch list as he traveled throughout New York. As he
worked at high levels within the Palestine Economic Corporation and
United Jewish Appeal, the FBI tried to determine his status as an
intelligence agent.

An operation in Argentina suggests Vardi never retired.

Under a file titled
"Espionage - Israeli, New York File #65-15961" the FBI compiled
intercepts of Vardi's correspondence with Canadian philanthropist Jacob
M. Lowy about the launch of Israel bonds and Alexander Sacks about gold
transactions and convertibility of foreign currencies. J. Edgar Hoover
notes, "Jacoby Lowy, a British subject who formerly lived in
Czechoslovakia, was operating a black market on materials shipped from
the United States to the Austrian government under the Marshall
Plan...to be used in the manufacture of tanks...it is possible that
subject and Lowy were acquainted in Austria in 1949."

Israel’s oldest
university – Technion – is under an intensifying legal spotlight over
stunning new allegations of espionage and a transparency-law fight to
reveal its clandestine role in nuclear weapons development. According to
information made public in a civil harassment suit filed on November 13,
2014 in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of
Los Angeles an Israeli scientist transferred information to Technion –
Israel Institute of Technology in violation of the Arms Export Control
Act from the Jet Propulsion Lab at the University of California Los
Angeles.

According to court filings, Dr. Amir Gat – an Israeli national –
executed a Technology Control Plan (TCP) under the International Traffic
in Arms Regulations (ITAR) registration in order to participate in the
U.S. taxpayer-funded JPL “Electrospray” space propulsion project at
UCLA. The TCP obligates signers not to disclose ITAR – restricted
technical data to foreign persons or countries without prior approval
from the US State Department. Failure to comply is supposed to trigger
criminal fines and penalties....

Adding insult to the
“failure to prosecute” injury, the Justice Department is also vigorously
fighting a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in September in the
District of Columbia Federal Court aimed at publicly releasing that
“Current Technology Issues in Israel” report on Technion and other
Israeli nuclear proliferators. Since 2003, Technion has received
tax-exempt funding from US donors averaging $87 million annually,
despite the fact that overseas nuclear weapons programs and espionage
against US facilities do not fit any IRS definition of a “social
welfare” charity. Under the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the US
Foreign Aid Act, Israel should have been ineligible to receive any of
the $82 billion in US taxpayer-funded foreign aid delivered since 1987
when it was found to be operating a clandestine weapons program outside
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

On November 19 Justice Department lawyer Laura Jennings revealed
defendants will use all available tactics to delay (PDF) and possibly
thwart public disclosure including claiming “perpetual non-disclosure
agreements” were signed during development of the 1987 report. The legal
tactic has been recently employed to prohibit open government law
attempts to obtain public release of information about law enforcement
agency use of so-called “stingrays” and “dirt boxes” to mass intercept
cell phone transmissions.
More

The
first IRmep question was phrased: “The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion
annually (9 percent of the foreign aid budget and more than any other
country). The amount is:” Respondents could then select from five
options: “much too much,” “too much,” “about right,” “too little,” and
“much too little.” To reduce selection bias, the order of response
choices was randomly reversed. According to 60.7 percent of Americans
polled, the U.S. was giving Israel excessive foreign aid. More than a
third, 33.9 percent (the majority response), said Israel received “much
too much” U.S. foreign aid, while 26.8 percent felt it was “too much.”
This result directly contradicts the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
findings based on questions that provided no dollar amounts or shares of
U.S. foreign aid.

According to the IRmep survey, those under the age of 35 tended to be
more in favor of reducing aid to Israel. However an overall majority
across age categories scored current aid as “too much.”

When cross-tabulated by income, only those Americans earning $150,000 or
more per year stated such aid was “about right” (47.6 percent), although
within that income category, 42.9 percent thought aid was “too much,”
while only 9.5 percent scored it as “too little.”

Since aid to Israel is premised on defense—allegedly keeping Israel from
being “pushed into the sea” by surrounding hostile states—how can the
majority of Americans believe the U.S. provides too much aid? American
presidents and politicians are heavily invested in Israel’s “ambiguity”
policy of never discussing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. However, most
Americans (63.9 percent, according to the IRmep survey) openly state
they believe Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons. It is
plausible that Americans believe the huge flows of aid purportedly
maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge” are unnecessary since
it has already long possessed the ultimate deterrent.
More.

WASHINGTON,
October 28, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A federal lawsuit seeks
immediate release of a closely held government report about how American
branches of Israeli charitable and educational institutes fund secret
nuclear weapons research and development programs.

An unclassified 1987 study conducted for the
Department of Defense titled "Current Technology Issues in Israel"
discovered Technion University technicians developing nuclear missile
re-entry vehicles and working at the Dimona nuclear weapons production
facility. Hebrew University computer scientists working at the Soreq
nuclear facilities were "developing the kind of codes which will enable
them to make hydrogen bombs." Israel's Weizmann Institute "studied high
energy physics and hydrodynamics needed for nuclear bomb design, and
worked on lasers to enrich uranium, the most advanced method for making
the material dropped on Hiroshima in 1945" say sources attributed to the
report cited in the lawsuit.

IRmep filed suit for the report in the DC
District Court as part of a public-interest drive to obtain long overdue
enforcement of the Symington and Glenn
Amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act. The laws prohibit U.S. foreign
aid to nuclear weapons states such as Israel that are not signatories to
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

A recent
Google Consumer Survey (PDF)
reveals that despite longstanding Israeli and US government gag orders
on publicly discussing the arsenal, 63.9 percent of Americans now
believe Israel possesses nuclear weapons. 60.7 percent of Americans
oppose sending the largest share (9 percent) of the U.S. foreign aid
budget to Israel.

Israel's Weizmann Institute, Technion, and
Hebrew University raise substantial tax-exempt charitable funding
through affiliates in the United States creating a "tax gap" that must
be financed by individual American taxpayers. According to their most
recent IRS filings, American branches of the three organizations raise a
combined $172 million in annual U.S. tax-exempt funding. IRmep's
"request for determination" filings with the IRS reveal that secret
foreign nuclear weapons development has no recognized U.S.
tax-deductible "social welfare" purpose.

Defendants Department of Defense, the DC US
Attorney Office and Attorney General have until October 30 to respond to
IRmep's public interest lawsuit demanding release of the explosive
report. The Center for Policy and Law Enforcement is a unit of the
Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington. Inquiries
about the lawsuit or opinion poll results may be directed to Grant F.
Smith at info@IRmep.org or 202-342-7325.

Most
Americans (60.7 percent) believe the United States gives "much too much"
or "too much" foreign aid to Israel according to the survey report
American Public Opinion
on U.S. Aid to Israel
(PDF) released today by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern
Policy, IRmep.

·33.9
percent of Americans say Israel receives "much too much" U.S.
foreign aid, while 26.8 percent feel it is "too much."
The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion annually—9 percent of the
foreign aid budget and more than any other country. Only 25.9
percent believe aid is "about right" while 6.1 percent think aid is
"too little" and 7.3 percent say it is "much too little." Since 1970 U.S. foreign aid to Israel has grown on
average 30 percent per year.

·Younger
Americans are most skeptical about U.S. aid to Israel. Almost 65 percent of adults under the age of 34 said
such aid is excessive.

·Only
the wealthiest Americans (earning $150k and above) believe aid is
"about right" at 47.6 percent.
However 42.9 percent within the same income category think aid is
"too much" while only 9.5 percent think it is "too little."

·Most
Americans (63.9 percent) believe Israel has an arsenal of nuclear
weapons. This
belief may make them resent costly demands to buy weapons to
maintain Israel's so-called "qualitative military edge" since Israel
has long possessed the ultimate military deterrent.

A majority of Americans (58.5 percent) mistakenly
believe that Iran also has nuclear weapons. No western government or intelligence agency claims
Iran has built a weapon. However a sustained campaign by anti-Iran
groups in the U.S. and news media failures have apparently led most
Americans to believe an Iranian bomb already exists.

The
U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge on Friday to throw out
a lawsuit against the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc.
More popularly known as United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), Greek
shipping magnate Victor Restis
sued UANI last year claiming the group's false public allegations he
aided Iran's nuclear program had cost him billions in lost revenue.
Mystery surrounds precisely how the U.S. Department of Justice decided
to become involved in the civil suit. Clues may be found in its
most court recent filing (PDF) demanding the lawsuit be shut down.
On February 14, 2014 "the Government informed the Court that the United States
wished to have an opportunity to determine whether the Government had an
interest in this action." According to
the court docket (PDF) through that time UANI was losing a series of
key battles to dismiss the Restis lawsuit and evade standard discovery
motions that would have revealed its secret sources of funding and
clandestine operations to obtain sensitive information. It is likely
UANI called in the government to help get the case dismissed.

UANI clearly has a lot to hide. Its board of advisors
includes the former head of a country's foreign intelligence services in
the top tier targeting the United States for economic and military
secrets— Israeli Mossad's former General Director Meir Dagan. The
thinly-funded organization
has premium office space in Rockefeller Center in New York. With a
budget of only $1.8 million per year, UANI somehow manages to target
timely satellite imaging while intercepting internal corporate
communications it uses to launch private and public shakedowns of
corporations it claims are not sufficiently adhering to the
Israel-lobby driven Iran boycott. UANI resembles yet another in a
long line of thinly-veiled Israeli cover entities than a bona fide
charity.
MoreRadio
Interview

...The evidence suggested
that "something did transpire," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mr. Carter's
national-security adviser, in a recent interview. "But until you have
conclusive evidence you don't want to make an international incident.
This is a potentially very explosive, controversial issue." Besides, he
added, even if a theft was proved, "What are we going to say to the
Israelis, 'Give it back?' "

Israel hasn't ever said whether it has nuclear weapons. A spokeswoman
for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment for
this article.

So did a spokeswoman for the Obama administration, which like past U.S.
administrations has declined to say whether it believes Israel has an
atomic arsenal. A CIA spokesman also declined to comment.

Mr. Carter, who said at a 2008 gathering in Britain that he believes
Israel has nuclear weapons, declined through a spokeswoman to be
interviewed.

His diplomatic efforts as president, which helped produce a peace treaty
between Israel and Egypt in 1979, likely wouldn't have been possible "if
there was some huge scandal at the time about this," said John Marcum,
the staffer who wrote the July 28, 1977, memo, in a recent interview.

The theft suspicions surround events at a now-dismantled facility in
Apollo, Pa., owned by a company called Nuclear Materials & Equipment
Corp., or Numec. In the mid-1960s, some 200 pounds of bomb-grade
uranium--enough possibly for several Hiroshima-sized bombs--couldn't be
accounted for there....

Potentially crucial sections of the recently released
documents--obtained by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern
Policy, an organization that has been critical of Israel--remain
classified.
More

Greek shipping magnate's lawsuit
could answer question, but
is blocked by the Justice Department

...UANI's charges that
Restis is a "front-man" for Iran are thinly
based on UANI's
possession of a proposal letter
for Restis to meet Iranian officials in Greece and a second "consultancy engagement agreement letter." UANI has refused to
publicly release to the public either of the two letters which Restis
claims are crude forgeries. On July 3, 2013 lawyers for Restis issued
their own "cease and desist" letter to UANI managerswhich triggered more UANI
accusations and adverse publicity, scuttling a
planned initial public offering and other large business deals.

Restis
has received many death threats as a result of UANI's unrelenting
campaign, being called "an evil, greasy, greedy bastard," a "Greek
fuck," "animal," "crook" and "Christian pig." Restis is Jewish
and claims he supports Israel and is opposed to Iran ever developing
nuclear weapons. Visitor comments on UANI's
Facebook page urge "hang him," "just shoot him" and
"lock and load torpedoes." Mr. Restis was approached by
Rami Ungar, an Israeli
shipping executivewith no visible
public connection to UANI according to court filings. Restis
claims Ungar was a fixer who mysteriously knew
all the details about the
UANI situation. Ungar claimed that on behalf of the group’s
supporters he was “authorized to try to resolve the issues.”
Restis is having none of it. In an April
letter to the presiding judge, the Restis
legal team claimed they uncovered information that
UANI “is being funded by foreign interests”
that
like Ungar,were presumably also from Israel. Restis filed court
documents to compel not only Rami Ungar's sworn
testimony but also that of UANI advisor Meir Dagan, the Israeli former Mossad intelligence chief. Restis claims it
was Mossad that served as the conduit between the source and UANI... More

If Israel were really a U.S. strategic asset, would 200
nonprofits have to spend $1.4 billion per year to convince Americans?

What are the major activities of Israel
lobbying organizations?

What is the return on
investment for every dollar spent? Is there a clear division of labor? Is the lobby
monolithic, a loose network or some kind of matrix? Which branches are
in charge of propaganda and spin? Does only the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby Congress?

Which nonprofits are in charge
of leadership development and junkets to Israel? How much influence do
Christian Zionist organizations really have? Does the $1.4 billion
figure include Christian Evangelical churches and synagogues? What
priorities and campaigns are revealed in year-to-year revenue
fluctuations? What sort of criminal activities have lobbying
organizations engaged in, and why?

...Hadden
eventually came to be hated by the Mossad and
Israeli intelligence services targeting the United
States – a feeling that was mutual. He even went
public with the CIA’s findings that Israel had
stolen large amounts of weapons-grade uranium from a
US Navy contracting company called NUMEC run by
Israel sympathizers in Apollo, Pennsylvania. His
public statements helped fan public and
congressional interest in finding out what happened
at NUMEC and punishing the perpetrators.
Insultingly, Hadden even compared spymaster Rafi
Eitan’s 1960 exploit kidnapping Nazi war criminal
Adolph Eichmann from the streets of Buenos Aires
with the later and much easier work of looting an
under-capitalized smuggling front under the obliging
eye of its owner.

"Just
imagine to yourself how much easier it would be to
remove a pound or two of this or that at any one
time, as opposed to – which is inert material – as
opposed to removing all at one blow. One hundred
fifty pounds of shouting and kicking Eichmann. You
see, they [the Israelis] are pretty good at removing
things."

Hadden unequivocally claimed that NUMEC was "an
Israeli operation from the beginning." The Israelis
in Hadden’s view were an unreliable source of US
intelligence, and too often spurred to violence.

“The Israelis, of course, are a special case,
because they’re so small – and they’re at war all
the time – they can go out and murder people and do
all kinds of things that we can’t do. They get a lot
done. Of course, Israeli intelligence is our main
source of intelligence. Unexamined, and that’s
another problem…”
More
Radio Interview

Newly
declassified postwar Naval Intelligence files shine new light on a
little-known chapter of U.S.-Israel relations. Massive supplies of
American WWII military surplus under liquidation by the War Assets
Administration were an irresistible target for Israel’s
government-in-waiting the Jewish Agency and nascent military the Haganah
in the years immediately preceding Israel’s declaration of statehood in
1948. The Jewish Agency was an organization contemplated as a vital
actor for achieving that statehood in Theodore Herzl’s original Zionist
vision. Explosives, advanced fighter, bomber and transport aircraft, and
Jewish veterans culled from a list stolen from the U.S. Chaplain all
entered a Jewish Agency pipeline stretching from the US to Mexico,
Panama, Italy and Czechoslovakia to Palestine. The stories these newly
declassified files tell not only foreshadow the institutionalized
immunity of crimes committed in the name of Israel, but major challenges
the US would later have to confront beyond displaced Palestinian
refugees and simmering conflict – ongoing money laundering into US
politics and Israel’s early desire to build nuclear weapons.
More
Declassified Files

Newsweek reporter Jeff Stein's "double-tap" exposé of Israeli
espionage in the United States has put Israel and its American lobby on
red alert. Stein's initial salvo "Israel
Won't Stop Spying on the U.S." generated
howls of outrageover veteran CIA analyst
Paul Pillar's accurate assessment that Zionists had been sending spies to
appropriate
U.S. resources and weapons even
before the state was founded. Pressed for details, Stein's
second piece "Israel's
Aggressive Spying in the US Mostly Hushed Up" exposed a bumbling
Israeli spy's unsuccessful attempt
to enter Al Gore's hotel room through an air duct.
According to Stein, the dwindling number of U.S.
criminal prosecutions is because the FBI has been directed
by the Justice Department to privately chastise, but not expose, Israel's spy
networks. The most recent criminal espionage prosecution, that of
former NASA official Stewart Nozette,
carefully sealed offhis handlers at
Israel Aerospace Industries from any consequences. Nozette had received
$225,000 and admitted to passing secrets to Israel, but rather than go
after his paymasters, the FBI set up an elaborate sting operation.
According to Stein, other American
counterintelligence officials felt instant push-back whenever they tried to warn
U.S. elected officials about Israeli espionage.

The new spying allegations come at an
inconvenient time since Israel and
its U.S. lobby have been ramping up efforts to obtain visa-free
Israeli entry to the United States. Israel's
poor record of visa
overstays, thousands of young people entering under tourist visas to work in the U.S.
and the growing espionage flap appear to make
Israel unlikely to enter the visa waiver
program any time soon. But three strategies have proven extremely
successful in the past for dampening fallout. Flood
American influencers with cash, send in
Israeli government officials to quietly lobby key
policymakers and charge opponents
with anti-Semitism.More

Despite
the fact that there is a large pro-Israeli lobby in the United States —
which would make it politically dangerous to talk about condemnation of
Israel, particularly in states with a large evangelical Christian base —
pushing aside allegations of theft and espionage would further weaken
the United States’ international credibility, according to many.

“[If] President Obama releases Pollard, it should be preceded by the
belated return of the massive trove of classified documents he stole for
Israel as well as all purloined nuclear materials and technologies,”
said Grant Smith, the director of the Institute for Research: Middle
Eastern Policy.

Finally, realizations that this theft has been covered up and denied by
the federal government for fifty years belies any allusions to
transparency in the federal government.
More

...Grant
W. [F.] Smith, Director of the Institute for
Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) followed up Gilinsky and
Matson’s 2011 disclosures with a report based ondocumentsobtained
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other documentary
evidence including corporate filings, office diaries and unguarded
interviews. The report was published in January 2012 as abook titled, Divert!
NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the diversion of US weapons grade uranium into
the Israeli nuclear weapons Program.According
toSmith, former
CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden claimed that NUMEC was “an
Israeli operation from the beginning.”
More

Last
month the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), the
nation’s highest classification authority, released a number of
top-level government memoranda that shed additional light on the
so-called NUMEC affair, "the story that won't go away—the possibility
that in the 1960s, Israel stole bomb-grade uranium from a US nuclear
fuel-processing plant.”

The evidence
available for our
2010
Bulletin article persuaded us that Israel did steal uranium from the
Apollo, Pennsylvania, plant of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment
Corporation (NUMEC). We urged the US government to declassify CIA and
FBI documents to settle the matter. In releasing the current batch—the
release being largely due to the
persistent appeals of researcher Grant Smith—the government has been
careful to excise from all the released documents the CIA’s reasons for
fingering Israel. Despite this, the documents are significantly
revealing. For one thing, the excisions themselves are a backhanded
admission of the persuasiveness of the CIA’s evidence. (Why these
excisions are legally justified is not apparent—after nearly 50 years,
the “sources and methods” issues have long ago dissipated.)
More

...The American
Israel Public Affairs Committee is celebrating President Barack Obama’s
decision to deny a visa to Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
AIPAC declared “The very fact that Iranian leaders would even select
such a person to represent them at the United Nations underscores the
importance of maintaining vigilance against the duplicitous behavior of
this regime – particularly in regard to its nuclear program.” Iran’s UN
ambassador nominee, Hamid Abutalebi, has been accused of playing a role
in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Rushed legislation
crafted and promoted by Israel’s supporters to block Abutalebi easily
passed the House and Senate and await the president’s signature. Until
now, the United States has automatically granted visas to heads of state
and diplomats from around the world to conduct business at the UN
headquarters in New York City. That the new policy is yet another
targeted measure to derail current negotiations over the Iranian nuclear
program is obvious in how the US treats Israeli diplomats and citizens
engaged in nuclear-weapons-related espionage against America.

If President Obama signs the Cruz legislation into law, it would allow
him to block Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ever
addressing the United Nations again...More

WASHINGTON,
March 27, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- OnMarch
18, 2014 ISCAP, the highest declassification authority in the U.S.,
released84
pages(PDF)
of formerly secret information about investigations into the illegal
diversion of weapons-grade nuclear material from aPennsylvania plant
into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program. Files now
available to the public from IRmep's ISCAP process include:

03/09/1972 FBI
memorandum (PDF) "On the basis of
the foregoing it must be assumed for the purpose of U.S. national
security that diversion of special nuclear materials to Israel by Dr. [Zalman]
Shapiro and his [NUMEC] associates is a distinct possibility."

08/02/1977 Memo to Carter from Zbigniew
Brzezinski (PDF) "So far as we know however, (and we have
made serious effort to discover it) there is nothing to indicate active
CIA participation in the alleged theft...There is a tremendous amount of
interest in this issue in Congress...We face tough sledding in the next
few weeks in trying to keep attention focused on ERDA's technical
[overall U.S. nuclear material loss] arguments..on the FBI
investigations, and away from the CIA's information."

Founders of the
U.S.-based sales corporation for Israel bonds included the unindicted
ringleader of the Sonneborn network of conventional arms smuggling
fronts, Rudolph Sonneborn, and the North America financier for Israel's
clandestine nuclear weapons program Abraham Feinberg, along with former
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.. Morgenthau's role in
conventional and nuclear smuggling for Israel is alleged, but
unconfirmed since the FBI has censored nearly every page of his lengthy
FBI file.

The FBI kept a close watch on the "American Financial and Development
Corporation for Israel" (AFDCI, incorporated in 1950) to determine
whether it was acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli
government.

On June 27, 1951, the FBI chartered an investigation to discover
"connection between subject corporation and the Government of Israel,
the extent to which the corporation is subsidized directly or indirectly
by the Government of Israel, and extent to which the Government of
Israel in any way exercises control of the policies or operations of the
corporation."

After one FBI inquiry, the Chief of Foreign Agent Registration at DOJ
(who later enforced the registration order against AIPAC's parent, the
American Zionist Council) determined that "Bonds for Israel" was
"entitled to 'Commercial Exemption' under the Registration Act for the
reason that funds raised by this organization are to be used for
economic purposes..." [Nathan] Lenvin "pointed out that Israeli
Government representatives and military personnel who tour the U.S. for
'Bonds for Israel' would be required to register with the Justice Dept.
if their talks and speeches include any political propaganda. He added
that, in his opinion, it would seem most difficult for these speakers
not to interject some political propaganda in their speeches."

FBI ordered that confidential informants be developed within the sales
network and that public source material be collected to determine
whether "'Bonds for Israel' have been engaged in activities requiring
their registration under the Registration Act."

On November 13, a 1956 FBI bulletin, copied to NSA and CIA, reported
that a secret November 9, 1956 Development Corporation for Israel
(successor to AFDCI) meeting took place over concerns that Israeli funds
would be frozen over Israel's attack on Egypt.

However, U.S. presidents never used their leverage on ballooning Israeli
bond sales across the United States to pressure Israel to comply with
international law. Although bond sales have expanded to over a billion
dollars a year (2013) as Israel's supporters enact laws to efficiently
place them in a wide variety of state government holdings, the record
reveals that the Justice Department has never engaged in a serious
review of compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.File.

An
FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles would not tell
Under the Radar if the bureau planned to interview Milchan or DeNiro
in connection with what they said in the Israeli interview.

“As a matter of policy, the FBI neither confirms nor denies
investigations. I am unaware of any public information relative to this
matter,” she said.

Grant Smith, author of
Divert, about the decades-long Israeli operation to funnel U.S.
nuclear secrets, uranium and parts to Israel, was not surprised that
Milchan was “unconcerned and on stage” at the Oscars. Smith said Milchan
has dodged prosecution for more than 30 years, even as a colleague in
the smuggling of nuclear triggers, Richard Kelley Smyth, ultimately was
arrested and jailed.

What has made Milchan untouchable, according to Smith, is his
connections. These include long time associations with Israeli leaders
including Shimon Peres and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
who worked at Heli Trading, a Milchan front company used for smuggling,
according to Smith, who cites Justice Department documents that he
acquired through
the Freedom of Information Act.

During the interview with Israel’s Channel 2, Milchan acknowledged being
an arms dealer and that he also used his international connections to
advocate for the apartheid government of South Africa in exchange for
the regime helping Israel procure uranium.
More

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2014
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ The March 7 National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel
"Special Relationship" at the National Press Club will present the following
experts:

Former Congressman Paul
Findley is the author of the groundbreaking book They Dare to Speak out:
People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby. Findley will discuss how the
lobby shapes important U.S. foreign policies and influences elections.

Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, will
deliver an update on what his groundbreaking 2007 book left out.

Historian Geoffrey Wawro
will describe surprising findings from his 2010 book Quicksand: America's
Pursuit of Power in the Middle East, and how its publication impacted his
career.

Lieutenant Colonel Karen U.
Kwiatkowski will deliver an insider account about the pre-Iraq invasion
environment inside the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. Kwiatkowski will
compare similarities and differences with the current neoconservative and Israel
lobby drives to attack Syria and Iran.

Brigadier General James J.
David will review how "super-sized" U.S. military aid to Israel affects
American allies. Former intelligence officers Philip Giraldi, Raymond McGovern,
Paul Pillar and Michael Scheuer will provide their insights about how Israel and
its lobby influence America's national security and global standing.
More

IRmep Director Grant F.
Smith questions former Nuclear Security Administration official about
NUMEC, Arnon Milchan, Telegy smuggling oscillators as examples that the
United States does not adequately protect facilities from Israeli
nuclear smugglers.

WASHINGTON,
Jan. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ America's first National Summit to
Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" will be held in the
ballroom of the
National Press Club on March 7 in Washington, DC.

U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic
support for Israel has grown significantly and steadily throughout the
past 60 years and now dwarfs annual American foreign assistance to all
other nations. Research indicates the U.S.-Israel "special relationship"
is a major factor in foreign hostility towards Americans. Some experts
suggest that Israel has been central to U.S. wars in the Middle East.

However, the huge public backlash against
Israel lobby-generated momentum for U.S. attacks on Syria and Iran
indicates that Americans are concerned about the direction of U.S.
foreign policy, how it is made, and those trying to make it. This
historic summit will provide an in-depth, multifaceted inquiry into this
critical subject matter. Panelists will include former military and
diplomatic personnel, intelligence officers, scholars, economists,
researchers and a variety of other subject-matter experts and authors
often shut out of key discussions in public forums and news media
outlets. Members of the public will be allowed to ask the key questions
and network with other attendees.

Interested members of the public may now
register for an early-bird discount online at EventsNow (link). Members
of the press may request credentials and currently enrolled university
or college students may apply for one of the limited number of
donor-funded free student tickets by completing and submitting this
registration form (PDF link). A complimentary lunch will be provided
during mid-day keynotes and panels.More

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS
WIRE)--Former Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer is the wrong
choice for vice chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. According to an
IRmep research report:

1. Fischer supports extreme anti-Iran policies that harm the U.S.
economy. During his 2005-2013 stint as governor of Israel's central
bank, Fischer lobbied Europe, Russia, and China to isolate Iran through
measures that went far beyond the sanctions adopted by the U.N. Security
Council.

The US Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, Coalition for American
Trade, National Foreign Trade Council and others rejected such
sanctions, provisions they estimated would cost America $25 billion and
210,000 jobs. (PDF) Yet Fischer is on record stating that even sanctions
are no longer enough and appears ready to prepare the U.S. financial
system for war as he did within Israel's central bank. Americans support
2-1 the current agreement to halt added sanctions during negotiations
with Iran.

2. Fischer's fundamental economic aid changes harm U.S. taxpayers.
Fischer was appointed by the Reagan administration to the U.S.-Israel
Joint Economic Discussion Group formed to deal with Israel's 1984-1985
economic crisis. To the detriment of U.S. taxpayers, Fischer helped
permanently transform billions in annual aid packages from repayable
loans to direct taxpayer subsidies that in 1985 amounted to over $1,650
per Israeli. Despite lip service, Fischer has never applied the
austerity measures he became famous for at the IMF to persuade Israel to
obey international law or U.S. demands to vacate occupied territories...
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